International CES 2009
& THE Show ReportCES & THE Show 2009 Report
Part 3 By Rick Becker

Continuing from
Part 2 and am now on the 31st floor of the Venetian Towers...

The song "Lady in Red" comes to mind when I recall the
little AUX system from
Italy
. It starts at $1500 for the three piece system in a rugged Stage Black. Add
$100 for Alpine White or gloss black. Add $500 for the Alfa Romeo Red shown
here, which will be a branded product through Alfa, as will the red and black
woven leather cover version that matches the Alpha Romeo interior. The woofer
unit seen here on the floor contains a 400 watt Class D amplifier and the
satellites house a 4-inch full range driver. I don't recall the input
capability, but it seems most everything these days has a USB input. This
system was stunningly beautiful in the Alfa red and a very high quality
lifestyle product. Seems they've missed an opportunity by not branding the
gloss black version through Harley-Davidson.

I thought Acoustic Energy's
Radiance 3 loudspeaker was one of the most sanely priced loudspeakers at the
show. At $3000, it was hard to quibble with its fine sound. The silver metal
surrounds on the drivers give it more of a lifestyle look than I personally
care for, but I'm a full generation ahead of its target audience, so what do
I know? If you can't use a floorstander there was a beautiful two-way
monitor with the same tweeter and mid-woofer for $1200 that should also be an
excellent value. Grille cloth for both models attaches with little magnets,
keeping the façade very clean looking. For home theater AE showed a powered
subwoofer in a clean black finish, along with powered small monitors at $600
each, making for a tidy $4000 surround system. Remember those small Class D
Blueblade amplifier modules I mentioned in Part 2? I don't know if they are
used here, but the concept is identical. Also on display was their new AE USB
DAC for $1500. With a USB input only, this DAC is compatible with Mac, Windows
and Linux. The line out is through balanced Neutrik jacks and there is also a
headphone output with two settings. A special circuit isolates the ground of
your computer from the ground of your audio system and the heavy cabined is
treated with vibration damping material to keep the music clean.

Bladelius Design Group
is a Swedish company founded by a guy who used to work for Classé. I
owe them an apology for neglecting to take a photo of their fine Scandinavian
designs. I took video notes of their Thor Mk II integrated amplifier with 165
watts per channel in
Class
AB
that goes for $3750. It has a complement of both balanced and unbalanced
inputs and outputs as well as a machined remote control. Check them out on the
internet.

LA Audio
from
Taiwan
manufactures a broad line of hand wired tube gear that was a feast for the
eyes and ears. Three items caught my eye. The rep said the A-3300, a 35 wpc
push-pull with four 300B tubes for $3150 is probably their best sounding unit.
But what really grabbed my attention was their new 25 wpc M-5 integrated with
a black metallic chassis and remote control for $1050. No excuses for not
trying tube gear now! The purist in me gazed at their beautiful P-88
monoblocks with a 211 tube driven by an EL34 for $4700/pr. Lots of eye candy
here.

My video notes failed me in The
Beatles Room because I was so blown away by a playback of an
unreleased Beatles song, complete with studio chatter, given to the presenter
here. The video was obscure because of the darkness, but l later realized the
loudspeaker was a rarely seen Manger 109
AG monitor. The Manger driver is a unique nearly full-range design that
extends out to 35 kHz. The monitor is $12.5k in wood or $15k in piano black as
shown here. They were placed on Boston Audio
Design TuneBlocks which appear light grey with the photo flash. The
Manger was being driven by the Delta Sigma
North Pole Series integrated amplifier which is said to be flat to 3 MHz and
sells for $27000. It is rated at 150 wpc, but claims 2000 watts on peaks,
Class AB. The source was an equally expensive Bow
Technologies CD player. Sometimes the music just transports you and
in this case it took me all the way back to the Sixties. This was one of the
golden moments of the show for me.

Another really cool room at CES was the J-corder
room filled with colorful rehabbed and rebuilt Technics reel to reel tape
recorders playing through a vintage pair of Epicure towers seen here to the
left. They specialize in Technics decks
because of the original build quality and the anodized color options offered
by their metal construction. A particular stunning machine was a black beauty,
a $25000 remake of a Master Pro deck with gold plated hubs that will take two
or four inch masters. They said they would consider rebuilding decks of other
manufacture so if you have something worthwhile, give them a shout.

The K & Q Sound
Genesis room was very interesting with its open baffle loudspeaker
constructed of solid cherry with a separate outboard crossover also housed in
cherry. It was driven by their own tube amplifier with a 300B tube driving
another 300B to produce 7 watts per channel which tells us the loudspeaker is
very efficient. From behind, the tweeter looked to be a small horn driver.
Shown here is Mr. Quoc Nguyenngoc whom I had the pleasure of meeting. Quoc has a
PhD from MIT and has been in the speaker and system building business for
thirty years. The speakers are $7800/pr. and the amplifier is $6800. The sound
here was very respectable and again challenged my antiquated opinion of open
baffle designs.

Hanss Acoustics
brought samples of all their turntables to CES, but the one you want to hear
about is their most affordable T-20 model, selling for $3080 without tonearm.
The company is based in Hong Kong but the tables are manufactured in mainland
China
incorporating a German bearing and a Czech motor. There is a magnetic
suspension on the three feet as well as on the platter itself. Should you
desire to lock down the platter suspension, you can do this by turning a knob
beneath the platter. The platter is driven by three bands of silicone.
Weighing 4.8kg, the platter is composed of machined and anodized aluminum and
topped with a cork mat and shown here with a record clamp. The plinth is a
sandwich of a black material that was not identified between two thinner
layers of aluminum. At the back corners of the plinth were protrusions for
mounting two tonearms. The curvaceous plinth carries over throughout their
line in various multiples to accommodate thicker platters, and perhaps even an
upgrade path. It is a very elegant design topped off with an impressive LED
speed readout on the plinth that read 33.333 rpm. Hanss also makes speed
controllers, mm/mc phono stages, a digital stylus pressure gauge and a heavy
duty record cleaning machine.